your hands in the holes of my sweater
by Ladyfnick
Summary: So it turns out that space is hella cold, so it's only natural that Lance ends up platonically cuddling with the other paladins. Well mostly platonically. Lance blames space for the mostly part. shklance.


1.

The first incident happens after a fight on an ice planet. The castle, Shiro and Hunk were on one side of the planet dealing with a bunch of Zarkon's minions that had been terrorizing the planet's Yeti population ( _Space Yetis!_ Lance had yelled when Allura had explained the mission. _They aren't Yetis!_ Shiro had scolded, but it had been too late, Hunk, Pidge and Lance were calling them Yetis and there was nothing Shiro could do to stop them). Pidge and Lance had been sent nearly to the opposite side of the planet to blow up a power source for the giant laser thing Zarkon's minions were using against the castle, only there had been more minions waiting for them, including a giant space crab robot. It had been less badass than Lance had thought it would be. Lance and Pidge and destroyed the power core thing and all the minions, but both of them had managed to trash their rockets in the fight and since the fight on the other planet was nearly done and not too dangerous, Allura had told them to hang tight and wait for the castle to come pick them up.

To pass the time, Lance is boredly having a conversation with his lion. Well it was less of a conversation and more of a him saying things followed by him getting impressions from Blue.

"So I was thinking, how cool would it be if I put a pool table in here?"

 _Disapproval._

"Yeah, you're right, it wouldn't fit. A pinball machine would be better."

 _Confusion._

"A pinball machine? They're so cool! It's like this giant box where you use little levers to make a little ball bounce around and not fall into the bottom."

 _Disapproval._

"Ugh, I guess I have no idea how I'd even make a pinball machine. Why aren't there any space arcades? Space sucks."

A large gust of wind roars by, hard enough to even make Blue rock sideways a little before regaining balance. Lance shivers violently, and swears the temperature drops another ten degrees and his teeth begin to chatter loudly.

 _Concern._

"Nah, buddy I'm fine," he insists, even if he's sitting in his pilot's chair with his knees pulled up to his chin and his shoulders hunched up high, trying to preserve any amount of heat. This strategy isn't working and he's pretty sure he's about to die of hypothermia. Lance hopes they make Keith be the one to chip his frozen ass out of the pilot's chair when they recover Blue and his ice cube corpse.

 _Concern and... Green?_

Lance frowns and it takes a minute for him to realize that Blue means Pidge. Or maybe just the green lion. Not being able to use actual words is frustratingly inaccurate. You'd think magic space engineers could have found a better way to communicate, given they could make a giant fighting robot in the first place.

After a couple more minutes of mental prodding, Lance gives in and contacts Pidge. His little buddy is pretty small all things considered, so if Lance is freezing, Pidge must be sub zero.

"Hey buddy, you turning into an ice cube over there?" He asks.

There's a muffled clang, followed by a curse and then Pidge answering him, "Uh, it's kinda cold, but not so bad?"

Lance frowns. He'd thought that it was the fact that they were trapped on a planet made of ice that was making him so cold but... Well being able to see his breath while inside his lion probably should have been a sign to him that something was up.

"Seriously?" He asks. "I'm pretty sure my balls are about to freeze to my flight suit if it gets any colder in here."

"Gross," Pidge complains. A pause. "Are you okay?" Pidge asks, irritation bleeding into begrudging concern. Lance isn't sure how concern can be begrudging, but Pidge is a master of it.

"Just freezing to death, no big deal," Lance says and then feels a little bad because he's not that bad off and Pidge is a worrier, just more quietly than Hunk or Shiro are.

"Hold on, let me run a diagnostic check," Pidge says and then there's several clicking noises followed by Pidge making a small humming noise.

"Well, it looks like your environmental regulators were damaged in the fight, they're completely offline," Pidge says after another moment. "But other than that and the damage to the rockets you found earlier, everything looks alright."

"You mean I can get into a fight with a giant space crab robot and then crash land and I only lost my heater?" Lance asks delightedly.

"Of course that's all you got out of that," Pidge mutters and then sighs, deep and long suffering before adding "Yes, Lance. You can get into a fight with a crab monster and only lose your environmental regulators. And rockets. But that part was your fault for trying to tackle to the space crab."

Lance cheers a little, because his buddy Blue is seriously badass and then has to clamp down on a whine when there's another gust of wind and he swears the temperature inside plummets another ten degrees.

"Seriously, Lance, are you going to be okay?" Pidge asks, and Lance belatedly realizes that the little whining sound he'd made was less mental and more verbal and Pidge had totally heard it. Whoops.

"It's only a little longer till Allura comes to get us, right?" Lance asks.

"Probably only another two hours," Pidge replies. "They've encountered more monsters than we thought there'd be, they're doing fine, but will take a bit longer to get to us since they need to move the Yeti's to somewhere safe, the fight trashed their ice caves and might cause an avalanche."

Yikes. Lance had been thinking it would be maybe another twenty minutes max. He's honestly not sure if he can handle waiting that long.

"Do you want to come over here?" Pidge asks hesitantly. "My environmental regulators were also damaged, but are still working."

Lance thinks about saying no, because going into the green lion will require _going outside_ which is very no, but then Blue all but inundates him with concern-tinged disapproval so he says, "Yeah okay."

All of Blue's limbs are working perfectly fine, it's just the actual rocket parts that were damaged, so Lance maneuvers his lion as close as possible to the green lion and then grits his teeth and climbs outside.

He'd heard in a biology class that the cold makes mammals sluggish, but Lance is pretty sure he's never moved faster than when he sprints through thigh deep snow from his lion to Pidge's.

It is noticeably warmer inside the Green lion, but not by much, especially with Lance letting in cold air with his entrance.

"I thought you said it was warm in here," Lance complains, rubbing his gloved hands ineffectual at his arms, trying to warm either of them up.

"I said it was _warmer_ ," Pidge corrects from where they are huddled in the corner of Green farthest from where Lance and the cold air came in. They seem to have found a shock blanket from a first aid kit, but it doesn't seem to be helping all that much, given how much Pidge is shivering. "Obviously if the atmospheric regulators are this easily damaged, I'll need to strengthen them."

"After Allura rescues us from this hell hole," Lance says because he really doesn't like the idea of Pidge fiddling with the only thing that's preventing them from actually freezing.

"At least hell would be warmer," Pidge grumbles. Lance notices that their lips are faintly blue, and realizes that Pidge is probably colder than he is given they are just as skinny as Lance is and a fair bit shorter.

"Alright budge up," Lance says and crowds his way into Pidge's personal space on the floor.

"What are you doing?" Pidge demands, elbowing him in attempt to get him to back off. Joke's on them, Lance has like a million younger relatives, he's been a pro at roughhousing basically since he was born, and he just weasels his way in between one of the walls and Pidge's side.

"We are c- huddling for warmth," Lance said, hastily correcting himself since using the word 'cuddling' is a one way ticket in getting his ass kicked out of Green into the snow.

"Let us never speak of this again," Pidge says and lets Lance get under the shock blanket.

"It never even happened, bro," Lance agrees and shamelessly presses into Pidge's side.

2.

Lance seriously is starting to think space has some hidden agenda hell bent on making him freeze to death. He wouldn't put it past Zarkon, it's almost diabolical enough.

It's the day after another fight with more minions, ones that had been stronger than the ones on the Yeti planet and had caused a bigger fight. A bigger fight that had caused some damage to the castle. Coran was fixing it easily enough with help from Allura, but had told the Paladins that he'd need to turn off some of the non-essential power drains for... reasons. Lance wasn't really paying attention at the time. It really didn't matter as the result was that the Castle of Lions was like twenty degrees colder than usual and the lights half as bright making the whole place kind of creepy as fuck, if Lance is honest with himself. Which he isn't about to be, since Keith would probably laugh himself into next week if he found out Lance was mildly freaked out by a somewhat shadowy corridor.

The Paladins respond to the drop in temperature in various ways- Keith by going to train like the little robot person he secretly is, Shiro either training or helping Coran since Lance is pretty sure he flat out doesn't feel the cold or something, and Pidge by barricading themself in their room and hiding under a pile of blankets and refusing to move and throwing things at anyone who tried to make them. Lance tried that only he got hungry and after twenty minutes of ignoring his rumbling stomach, he begrudgingly dragged his ass to the space cafeteria thing.

Hunk had somehow convinced the weird machines to make something like coffee, provided you didn't look at it, so Lance figured he could at least get something warm. Yup, nothing like scary purple space coffee to warm you up.

The small flaw in his plan is the fact that the kitchen is absolutely _freezing._ Lance yelps a little when the door to the kitchen slides open and hits him in the face with a blast of cold air. Still, he really wants that hot drink, so he soldiers on. Because he's a tough, rugged, manly paladin and no cold room is about to stop him. Being a tough, rugged, manly paladin doesn't mean he doesn't hunch his shoulders all the way up and curl his hands under his armpits and bounce on his toes while he waits for the machine to spit out his coffee lookalike.

"Hey buddy," Hunk says as he comes into the kitchen. "What's up?"

Hunk looks perfectly normal, not bundled up in extra layers or chattering his teeth. Lance doesn't really think about it before he's latched onto Hunk like a barnacle, smooshing his face into Hunks' warm shoulder.

"Uh," Hunk says in confusion, even as his arms come up automatically to return the gesture, since he's a real hugger.

"I'm cold," Lance says and isn't ashamed to admit that he's whining. It is just that cold in the castle, whining should be expected at this point.

"I guess it is a little colder than normal," Hunk agrees, though he clearly isn't feeling the cold like Lance is.

"It's freezing because space has it out for me," Lance says as one of the machines finally dispenses his coffee.

"Do you want to watch a movie or something?" Hunk offers when it's clear Lance isn't about to let go because _wow Hunk is seriously warm this is completely unfair_. "Pidge figured out a way to get english subtitles on them now."

"No more playing guess that line?" Lance asks curiously. He's almost disappointed, he was having fun making up increasingly ridiculous translations just to see how far he could take it before Keith would snap at him in irritation.

"They aren't very good translations," Hunk says and then adds. "And if you want to, you're going to have to let go first."

Lance does, with much whining, but they settle into the comparatively warmer lounge with Lance all but crawling on top of Hunk for warmth. His buddy even remembers to bring Lance's forgotten not-coffee. Lance sometimes wonders what he did to deserve having Hunk as a friend.

"I hope you don't have to pee because I'm not moving," Lance informs him as the Altean movie starts.

3.

The thing about being magic feline space knights is that it isn't all space crab robot punching and also involves (sigh) diplomacy.

Lance is completely shit at diplomacy.

He is entirely willing to admit this. It isn't his fault it's so boring that he sometimes falls asleep or stops paying attention in the middle of a conversation and says something weird in response to basic questions or accidentally hits on the king's married daughter in full view of her very possessive royal consort. Or all of the above, at a banquet thing that the paladins were all sent to while Allura was doing more diplomacy-y things elsewhere.

So Lance is seriously questioning the decision to send _Lance_ of all people with Shiro to deal with the space yetis. More space yetis, because apparently there are multiple planets of space yetis. Has Lance mentioned how _weird_ space is?

On the surface Lance being sent had something to do with Allura and Coran wanting him to learn to suck less at not pissing off aliens who are allied with them, but really it had everything to do with Allura wanting Lance out of the castle before Keith or Pidge gave into the urge to shove him out an airlock out of sheer frustration.

So there Lance is, once again on a goddamn ice planet full of yetis, freezing to death. Only this time he doesn't have Blue with him so it's a thousand times worse.

Shiro and Lance had left their lions in the super high tech walled city of the space yetis (which had looked like a futuristic igloo, because _of course_ it did) while they'd been taken on a tour of... something, Lance hadn't been paying attention at the start- it had been way boring, when a heavy snowstorm had blown up. They'd been in a tunnel and it had collapsed unexpectedly, separating them from their one had been injured, but the collapse had been bad enought that Shiro and Lance weren't going debris was heavy, and there wasn't much room where Shiro and Lance were trapped, so even if they had been able to move any of the ice, there wouldn't have been anywhere to put it.

So there they are, trapped in an ice tunnel until their guide could get back to the city to get help. First Zarkon, then the first ice planet, now this. Lance is really starting to think the galaxy was out to get him personally.

"H-h-how much longer?" Lance asks Shrio even though he knows that it's barely been two minutes since he last asked the same question. Shiro seriously has the patience of a saint, Lance reflects occasionally, mostly after realizing he's done something stupid, hours after doing it.

"It's still another twenty minutes until we should hear back from Chell'ari," Shiro replies patiently, concern stealing over his face when he looks at his space watch thing. Shiro didn't mention the part where they'd probably have to wait for the storm to blow over for anyone to be able to get out to them, given how hard the wind was howling outside.

"G-g-great, I had nothing better to do than slowly turn into a space popsicle," Lance says through chattering teeth.

Shiro has the gall not to look the slightest bit cold despite the fact that they are both lounging around in a tunnel literally made of ice, located several miles under more ice. If Shiro wasn't the nicest person on the planet. Er, in the galaxy, Lance would seriously hate Shiro. Also if hating Shiro wasn't like hating... _puppies_ or something truly awful like that.

"Here, Lance," Shiro says, offering Lance his vest thing, leaving him only in his spandex shirt.

"I'm not taking your vest!" Lance says, affronted. Because a) a vest isn't going to make any difference with how goddamn cold it is and b) he refuses to even contemplate the fact that Shiro doesn't even seem slightly colder with one less layer.

"Just take it, we're going to be here for a while, it makes sense to stay warm as possible," Shiro says reasonably. But Lance is _on to him_ , he saw that tiny shiver. Shiro is totally cold and trying to pretend he isn't out of some stupid self-sacrificing leader bullshit.

"I'm not even cold," Lance lies flippantly, crossing his arms.

Shiro doesn't deign to reply to that flimsy excuse, but puts his vest back on, so score one for Lance! Then he hauls Lance in for a hug.

Uh.

"Dude, do you have hypothermia or something?" Lance asks. Can hypothermia cause delusions or something? Because it's definitely happening, Shiro is totally hugging him, what the hell. It's not that he minds really, Lance is totally a hugger especially if it's with a sexy lady. Or dude. Or sexy anything, Lance isn't picky. He will hug the shit out of any sexy being that lets him. But this is Shiro, and as nice as it is- and _oh man_ can Shiro hug, he's just the right height for Lance to get in close without having his face jammed somewhere unpleasant like an armpit and Shiro is actually really warm and all muscly but... Uh Lance forgot where he was going with that.

Oh right, Keith. He is pretty sure Keith and Shiro had A Thing. Or something. They spend all of their free time together, which isn't much since Keith is a training robot poorly disguised as a teenage boy. But Shiro is the only one who can bully Keith into doing Real Boy things like eating and sleeping and Team Voltron Weird Altean Movie Night without having his head bitten off. So yeah, he Hunk and Pidge have an ongoing bet about whether the Shiro and Keith thing is actually A Thing or not. Pidge says it isn't since he and Shiro have a big-sibling-little-sibling thing that is not A Thing, so obviously the Keith and Shiro thing might just be a weird mentor-student-friend thing. But Hunk and Lance firmly hold that it _has_ to be A Thing with how many affectionate shoulder pats Keith gets and doesn't snarl at, and all the fond looks Shiro gives him.

So yeah, Lance is pretty convinced it's not a thing but A Thing for sure. Which makes cuddling with Shiro a little bit weird _especially_ since it's so nice. Not to mention the teeny tiny crush he's been hoarding. It's totally normal an ignorable, Lance is pretty sure anyone in the galaxy in a two mile radius of Shiro has a little crush. But it's only Lance who has to deal with hugs all of the sudden.

"If you won't take my vest, then I'll have to make sure you stay warm," Shiro says, completely serious despite how dorky he sounds (seriously, Lance is pretty sure he heard the same line in a literal _porno_ and oh god, not the thing to be thinking about while platonically cuddling with someone, what is wrong with Lance's brain, like seriously _stop that_ ).

"This is dumb," Lance says, even if he _is_ feeling warmer, and he lets Shiro pull him down so they can sit on the floor since the ceiling is kind of awkwardly low and was making Shiro have to hunch down to avoid hitting his head on it.

Eventually Lance _has_ to break the silence because it's _weird_ just sitting there quietly, so Lance says, "I miss my mom's hot chocolate. On holidays she'd do it the old fashioned way and like melt chocolate on the stove and stir milk in and dump cinnamon into it. It always warms you up instantly."

"Sounds nice," Shiro says, real quietly. It hasn't escaped Lance that whenever Pidge, Hunk and Lance talk about their families and what they miss about them, Keith and Shiro never participate. Lance never knows what to say, especially when Keith Mcstupidhair looks sad enough to make even _Lance_ feel sorry for him, much less when Shiro looks sad (which is like twelve million kicked puppies with cancer sitting in the rain). And it's always in those moments when Lance abruptly remembers that for all that Shiro is their fearless leader and space explorer and all that, he's also like _nineteen_ and basically the same age as the rest of them even if he pretends to be beyond stuff like homesickness and acts like a leader who's responsible for all of their shit all the time. So Lance barrels on like he hasn't even noticed.

"Yeah it's great, especially when it actually snows, only once every three years or something, but all my cousins always go outside and have snowball fights and stuff but afterwards we always would go inside to warm up and mom would be waiting with hot chocolate," Lance rambles on, wriggling slightly to get into a comfier position. He very pointedly does not think about how much he's enjoying the ongoing hug, and instead starts recounting the long and rather convoluted story about how his younger cousin Louisa tried to make hot chocolate for them all one year when his mom had been away and had accidentally put chili powder in it instead of cinnamon and his little cousin Maria had to be taken to the hospital when they all discovered she was spectacularly allergic to it.

By the end of it, Shiro looks happy but still kind of melancholy, and there are not enough Galra forces in existence to stop Lance from blurting, "You could come over and have some sometime. If we ever get home. My mom would love you."

Shiro smiles, less sad puppy and more wistful and says, "Thanks, Lance."

And shit. That right there, that is the moment Lance falls off the cliff called unrequited pining. Fuck his entire life. He blames the space yetis.

4.

After the whole nearly getting hypothermia while cuddling with Shiro situation, Lance does his best to subtly avoid Keith. This doesn't go well for a number of reasons. The first being that despite living in a ridiculously humongous giant space castle-ship, all of the paladins spend a truly obnoxious percentage of their time together, enough that Lance really can't avoid Keith at all without someone noticing. The second being that Lance normally spends approximately four hours a day actively seeking Keith out just to verbally poke at him until he snaps since that's like his third favourite hobby while stuck in space without wifi or any video games or non poorly dubbed alien movies, and if he stops that then _everyone_ would notice and probably try to sit on Lance until he fesses up to whatever's bugging him. Or Hunk would accuse him of being a pod person again. Once was enough. That had been a very long, tiring day filled with more glitter than Lance ever wanted to see again.

So, for obvious reasons, avoiding Keith lasts all of five hours until Shiro corners him and asks him what's wrong and did Shiro make him feel uncomfortable or something on the ice planet- Lance swiftly interrupts him and babbles some bullshit excuse and gives up on avoiding Keith.

So mostly Lance just avoids looking Keith directly in the eye since Keith would probably see _I have a huge embarrassing crush on your sort-of-boyfriend_ the instant he looks at Lance's face directly.

A week later, Lance is in hell. A very cold, icy hell.

They're on an ice planet, because _no seriously how many fucking ice planets are there, is Zarkon going out of his way to specifically only attack ice planets this month just to torture Lance?_ _That sounds like the sort of dastardly, underhanded thing he'd do._ But they're on an ice planet and Keith and Lance were sent to collect a bunch of ancient weapons the ice dragons that lived on the planet (at least they weren't more yetis, Lance had mentally grumbled) apparently had, while Hunk, Pidge, Shiro and Allura kicked the Galara force's asses.

The weapons are pretty fragile and apparently prone to self-destructing, so Pidge and Allura had impressed upon them multiple times how important it was that Keith and Lance not get into any fights while carrying them. Lance is seriously questioning the intelligence of whoever decided _Lance and Keith_ were the right ones to be sent on this mission. Especially when things aren't going well.

"Shit, we can't shake them," Keith mutters as they try to lose the Galra ships on their tails by flying through increasingly narrow rock formations at the top of a cliff. They've already flown up and down the cliff edge a bunch of times and so far have failed to escape the Galra ships, though they've managed to stay out of reach so far. Lance, for all that he thinks explosions are pretty badass, really doesn't want to find out what kind of explosion these scary ancient dragon artifacts can cause while Lance is still carrying one around. If it was in a Galra ship, Lance would be all over that. Pidge could record it for some sciencey thing and it basically wouldn't happen just because Lance likes to see the pretty lights and the big booms.

"Well we have to do _something_ ," Lance grumbles back, but quietly since his head is killing him and he hasn't been feeling so hot ever since he got up that morning. It was like his body had been telling him _Lance no stay in bed, you're going to have to deal with another fucking ice planet if you get up_.

The Galra ships are right on their tails, and Lance is seriously tempted to suggest they just turn and fight, but Allura would have their balls and also _death_ , possibly even death followed by Allura working some space magic and bringing them back to life just to shout and Be Very Disappointed at them. Which is worse than being dead, really. So that's right out.

He spots something up ahead, and a plan quickly forms in his head.

"I have an idea," he says, and abruptly pulls Blue up and around in a hairpin turn. One of the Galra ships following him doesn't corner as well and smashes on the icy rocks, but that still leaves another five hot on his tail.

Keith grumbles something, but is too busy doing a barrel roll to complain and follows after Lance.

They fly around a bunch, until Lance figures the guys following them are probably pretty turned around and then flies back to where they were before, but instead of sticking to the narrow rock formations they'd been weaving through before, Lance takes Blue right over the cliff.

"Lance!" Keith shouts, but follows after him anyways. They only have about two seconds for this plan, so Lance keeps his eyes focused and hands clenched on the controls, despite the fact that he's feeling super tired all of the sudden and he all he really wants is to close his eyes.

About two seconds before they're about to crash into the icy plain at the bottom of the cliff, Lance jerks the controls violently to the right and Blue narrowly misses crashing into the side of the cliff and comes to an abrupt stop inside a small cave, just big enough for both of their lions from view, and all but unnoticeable unless you're looking for it. Lance is a genius. A genius who is going to take a quick nap. Since when was it so cold inside Blue? He wants to sleep, but his skin feels all prickly and he can't get comfortable and the cockpit feels several degrees colder than it should.

 _Concern._

"Nah 'm okay, buddy," he tells Blue, but the words come out kind of mushy and slurred sounding. Blue doesn't seem terribly convinced, but Lance is too tired to do anything about that. Besides, he's fine, he just needs a little nap.

"Next time warn me when you're going to do a nosedive off a cliff!" Keith shouts at him. Lance grunts in reply, eyes already closed and drifting closer to sleep.

"Lance?" Keith says after a moment, sounding concerned. Normally Lance would make fun of him for being worried, but that sounds like way too much effort. He curls his legs up into his pilots chair and presses his face into his knees. When did Blue start rocking like a ship? Because that is seriously not cool and making him feel kind of nauseated in a way that piloting never does.

"Dude, you're seriously starting to freak me out. Did you hit your head or something?" Keith's voice sounds kind of funny, so Lance chuckles, but it's also getting kind of annoying, Lance just wants to _sleep_.

"Keith, 'm tryin' to sleep," he whines into his comm, hoping a reply will get him to shut the hell up. This has the complete opposite effect.

"Lance, what's wrong? You sound weird. What's wrong?"

Lance whines and pulls his helmet off because he's seriously starting to sweat. Blue's heating systems must have kicked on _finally_ because it is positively roasting now.

"If you don't answer me and make me come over there I'm going to kick your ass," Keith says. He sounds dead serious, so Lance wills up the wherewithal to mumble, "'m fine Keith. Lemme sleep."

There's a muttered curse followed by blessed silence. Lance drifts, not quite asleep but not fully awake for an indeterminable amount of time. Lance tries really hard to fall asleep, since it seems like a better option than being awake and too-hot-too-cold while Blue rocks back and forth unpleasantly, but he fails.

A hand touches his shoulder. Lance flails at it spectacularly and falls out of his seat, landing in a dazed heap on the floor.

"What's wrong with you? Didn't you hear me calling your name?" Keith demands, scowling at him. The funny thing about Keith scowling at anyone is that it's kind of like being growled at by a kitten, more adorable than threatening. Lance imagines Keith with teeny tiny kitten ears and giggles- it's _adorable,_ what the hell.

"Are you sick or something?" Keith asks, kneeling next to Lance. The floor feels too cold under Lance's cheek, but he doesn't want to move, he's feeling super shaky and weak. The floor feels a lot safer than trying to stand up.

"Lance. Are you sick?" Keith repeats, nudging Lance's shoulder when Lance's eyes start to slip shut.

"Uh. Maybe?" Lance says. He doesn't really remember ever getting sick, aside from when he was a kid; the Garrison immunized all of their students within an inch of their lives, so getting sick aside from minor colds was fairly uncommon.

Keith presses a hand to Lance's forehead and swears. "Shit. You're burning up. We need to get you back to the castle and put you in a healing pod," he says and starts to pull his hand away.

Lance whines and latches on to it, because it feels so nice and _warm_ against his skin.

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm just going to contact Allura," Keith says, trying to pry Lance's hands off.

"No," Lance says stubbornly. "You're warm."

Keith is kneeling next to Lance on the floor, so it's easy enough to curl around his legs, and push his face into Keith's hip. Holding onto him makes the rocking feeling of Blue feel less noticeable, and less like Lance is about to slide right across the floor.

"Get off of me," Keith grumbles, prying Lance off easily.

"No!" Lance says, panicked. He tries to cling harder. Keith can't go anywhere. Lance needs him to stay right where he is. Letting go is bad bad bad-

"Okay, chill, not moving. Just let me sit down properly," Keith grumbles, but Lance can hear a little bit of panic in his voice. He settles against the side of the console and Lance sprawls across his lap, face pressed into his stomach, arms clutching his waist. Lance feels cold all over, except for where he's touching Keith.

"Allura? We have a problem."

"Where are you both? We have successfully eliminated the Galra forces attacking the city, but more are still searching the planet for the ancient weapons. Have you secured them yet?"

"We have them, but we got spotted coming back with them and had to hide. Lance is sick and can't pilot his lion. We need to get him to a healing pod."

Allura and Keith talk some more, but Lance doesn't feel like paying attention, so he lets himself zone out, not quite asleep, but not really awake either.

"Hey," Keith says, jabbing a finger into Lance's shoulder. "Don't fall asleep."

"That's for concussions, moron," Lance mumbles, but obligingly opens his eyes back up.

Keith looks kind of relieved to hear Lance insult him.

"Ugh, this sucks," Lance whines.

"Have you never been sick before?" Keith asks, his stupid handsome face looming over Lance's head.

"No," Lance whines and clings a little harder, because seriously this _sucks_ and he can't help but feel a little scared because it's weird and he's never felt this out of control of his own body before and he doesn't like it.

"Hey- hey, it's going to be okay, Lance," Keith says, looking a little panicked. He hesitates, then one of his hands smooths over Lance's hair and pushes his sweaty, gross bangs off his forehead which feels so _nice_.

"You're going to be okay," Keith repeats when Lance just blinks dazedly at him.

Lance doesn't mean to, he really doesn't. It's all Keith's fault for looking so worried and being so careful with Lance and letting him cling to him, and petting Lance's hair and- well it's hardly Lance's fault he reaches up and pulls Keith down into a kiss.

Keith leans into it for just a second before he jerks back. Lance lets go and goes limp and pretends to be asleep and too out of it to talk until everyone shows up to save their sorry asses.

5.

Lance wakes up and pretty much falls on his face coming out of the healing pod and honestly would like to climb back in. Because the alternative is being alive and having to deal with the fact that his fevered self totally macked on Keith.

"I am a human train wreck," Lance whines into the floor, because honestly, he is.

"Lance!" Shiro says, pulling him up. "Are you feeling alright?"

"The pod should have fixed everything," Pidge says from somewhere behind Shiro. "Maybe it isn't as effective on human illness rather than injuries?"

Lance realizes abruptly that he's sort of... cradled in Shiro's arms. How is this his life?

"I'm fine!" Lance all but yelps and scrambles to his feet. "Just, you know, healing pods, man!"

"They are rather tricky!" Coran agrees. "Why, once when I was a wee lad-"

Standing up, Lance can see Keith standing a few feet away, arms crossed. He isn't glaring but staring intently at Lance and-

"I have to pee!" Lance yelps, cutting Coran off and making a hasty getaway. As the door slides shut behind him, he can hear Hunk wondering if he had some bad space goo before they left for the ice planet.

Lance manages to avoid everyone for a while by hiding in his room. Like an adult. An adult charged with saving the universe. A _stunningly handsome and charismatic_ adult who was saving the universe and also attracted to two of his fellow paladins in a seriously weird way. What the hell was up with his brain? Like it was obvious that Shiro was attractive, old grandmas would be attracted to Shiro. Lance wanted to climb him like a tree but also wrap him in a giant blanket and pet his hair.

And that doesn't even include Keith. Like Lance is pretty sure some wires in his brain got crossed because he still wants to poke Keith until he snaps because that's _always_ hilarious but he also wants to, like, violently make out with him sometimes.

Lance can't hide in his room forever, so eventually he comes out to get food, theoretically while everyone is asleep.

Keith is sitting against the wall next to his door.

Lance flails a little and tries to dive right back where he came from, but Keith's hand shoots out and grabs him by the ankle.

"What the hell!" Lance shrieks a little shrilly, because he was seriously not expecting there to be an entire person right outside his door.

"Shiro said we couldn't bug you when you were in your room, but he didn't say I couldn't wait for you to come out," Keith says very seriously like that's a totally normal thing to do.

Lance has the element of surprise so he yanks his leg out Keith's grip and books it down the hall. Running solved all his problems.

Shiro steps around the corner at the end of the hallway.

Lance screeches to a halt and glances behind his shoulder to confirm that yup, Keith is blocking his exit the opposite way.

"Um, hi?" Lance says.

Shiro approaches him, looking concerned and a little upset, which yup there's the million kicked puppies.

"I'm sorry, we were all pretty concerned when you left this afternoon," Shiro says. "I didn't want to intrude, and _neither did Keith_ ," he adds pointedly towards Keith, who doesn't look terribly embarrassed. "But I wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Healing pod worked its magic," Lance says with flippancy he didn't feel. "I'm all good. I'm just gonna get a snack before I get my beauty sleep."

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," Shiro says. "It's nothing to be embarrassed about-"

"I kissed your boyfriend!" Lance exclaims. "Why aren't you pissed at me?!"

"Do you want me to be mad at you?" Shiro asks, looking confused.

"That hardly counted as a kiss," Keith grumbles.

"My lips touched yours, ergo a kiss, you moron!" Lance shouts.

"You weren't well, we hardly hold your actions against you," Shiro says reasonably just as Keith, leaning right into Lance's face, demands, "What, did you want it to be a kiss?"

"Maybe!" Lance yells back and then slaps a hand over his mouth.

Keith and Shiro stare at him, then look to each other.

"I win," Keith says, with a rare smile.

"I never took that bet," Shiro protests, but he's also smiling. Lance kind of wants to remind them that they were all just having it out over Lance having a- a _thing_ about Shiro and also kissed his boyfriend. But he also really, really, _really_ doesn't, so he tries to subtly pull himself out from between the two of them.

Shiro and Keith both give him disappointed looks for that. Lance discovers that disappointed Keith is less 'twelve million sad puppies' and more 'child told christmas is cancelled forever'.

"Lance," Shiro says. "You're not in trouble here." He takes Keith's hand and gives him a look Lance doesn't understand, but it's soft and intimate and doesn't seem like something Lance should be seeing. "We sort of talked about something like this happening."

"It's not like this is a surprise," Keith grumbles, not quite meeting Lance's eyes, and is that a _blush?_ "You're hardly subtle."

"Wait- wait, you talked about me getting sick and kissing your boyfriend?" Lance asks, kind of lost, but his heart has started to race.

Shiro gives him a slightly exasperated look. "No, Lance, not that, this," he says, and then takes Lance's hand in his free hand.

Lance stares at him wide eyed, and then looks to Keith. He's _totally_ blushing, but takes Lance's other hand.

"Okaaay, so just so we're all on the same page, you're talking about, like, polyamory, right?" Lance asks, feeling kind of stupid because he's literally hold hands with two people he'd like to make out with but also is so 100% this can't actually be happening, like did he _actually_ eat some bad space goo?

"Why don't I show you what an actual kiss is like?" Keith asks, expression intent and Lance is seriously feeling a little jealous over that line because _it's totally working and if Lance used it he'd just get an eyeroll how is that fair and-_ then they're kissing. It's oddly tender, Lance had always assumed kissing Keith would be violent or like a fight, but this is soft and slow, but intense, like Keith himself. Lance's lips part slightly, and Keith pulls away, smirking because he's a total jerk. A sexy, amazing kisser who is a total jerk.

Lance looks at Shiro, half expecting him to look mad, but he's just smiling at them, like he can't believe his luck. He's also still holding Lance's hand, Lance realizes belatedly, which should have been weird while kissing Keith, but just felt natural.

"Your turn?" Keith asks Shiro, faux casually like his lips aren't still slick and his face isn't still bright red.

Shiro shrugs and pulls Lance in to him, tipping Lance's head back carefully. Lance hadn't realized until then how normal Shiro's Galra arm is, it's just as warm as a human's.

"It's okay if you don't want to-" Shiro starts to say.

Lance has had enough of this bullshit and kisses Shiro soundly on the lips. Shiro makes a startled noise against his lips, but wraps one arm across Lance's back and kisses back. It's... different than Keith, but just as good. Shiro is soft and sweet , almost chaste and when he pulls away, both of them are smiling.

+1

"Stop hogging the bed!" Lance whines, and then tries to burrow himself under Shiro's arm.

"If you'd just move your stupid leg, I would be able to," Keith grumbles back, even as his one of his hands smooths over Lance's side in a slow caress and his face presses into Lance's hair. Lance would say something about a hair fetish, but Shiro had actually kicked them both out the last time he'd done that.

"My leg doesn't bend any farther!" Lance retorts, but smiles against Shiro's skin, where Keith can't see.

"Do I need to kick you both out of my bed again?" Shiro asks, sounding long suffering, though from where he is, Lance can tell he's fighting to keep a smile off his face.

All three of them are crammed in Shiro's bunk, which was approximately two and a half more people than it was made to hold, and Keith's freezing toes keep poking Lance in uncomfortable places (read: literally anywhere on his person, they are so _cold_ ugh) and the blankets slide off no matter what any of them do, and Shiro's Galra arm is pretty unpleasant to lay on- but Lance can't think of a time when he's been more comfortable, and he is so _warm_.

Note: Originally posted on my AO3 account on September 2, 2016


End file.
